Page:Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 25 1829.pdf/3



Yet pause once more!—All, all thy soul hath known, Loved, felt, rejoiced in, from its grasp must fade! —Is there no voice whose kind, awakening tone A sense of spring-time in thy heart hath made? No eye whose glance thy day-dreams would recall? —Think—wouldst thou part with all?

Fill with forgetfulness!—there are, there are, Voices whose music I have loved too well; Eyes of deep gentleness—but they are far, Never, oh! never in my home to dwell! Take their soft looks from off my yearning soul— Fill high the oblivious bowl!

Yet pause again!—with Memory wilt thou cast The undying Hope away, of Memory born? Hope of re-union, heart to heart at last, No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn? Wouldst thou erase all records of delight, That make such visions bright?

Fill with forgetfulness, fill high!—yet stay— —'Tis from the past we shadow forth the land, Where smiles long lost, again shall light our way, And the soul's friends be wreath'd in one bright band: —Pour the sweet waters back on their own rill, I must remember still!

For their sake, for the dead—whose image nought May dim within the temple of my breast, For their love's sake, which now no earthly thought May shake or trouble with its own unrest, Though the past haunt me as a spirit—yet I ask not to forget!F. H.